By Courtney Hessler, The Herald Dispatch
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — As attorneys attempt to navigate uncharted waters created by the COVID-19 pandemic, sides met via a video conference Wednesday in an effort to push a Cabell County and Huntington lawsuit against opioid distributors forward.
During the hearing, a new trial date was set and motions were heard in which the governments accuse three opioid distributors of helping create and fuel opioid abuse in the area.
AmerisourceBergen Corp., McKesson and Cardinal Health — the “Big Three” drug distributors — were named as defendants in the lawsuit in 2017, accusing them of blindly pumping pain pills into Appalachia, thus fueling opioid and later heroin addiction. More than 3,000 cases have been filed since by others.
The case had been set to go to trial this week in Charleston but was postponed when U.S. District Court Judge David A. Faber ruled it was too risky to proceed — a ruling made at least twice in 2020, before the COVID-19 cases began to skyrocket across the country…